Caffeine and Kids: What You Need to Know

We have been told that coffee and children don’t go together. Coffee is not a beverage for kids, and we should keep it that way. However, what are the reasons that make coffee so risky for children? It seems like one of those truths that we just believe in without trying to look deeper into the causes. We decided to do a small research on our own to learn more about the consequences of caffeine and kids.

Here are the facts that we have found. Let’s analyze them together.

Caffeine and Kids

First of all, let’s talk about caffeine.

The thing is, even if your children don’t drink coffee, chances are, they still consume caffeine. Caffeine is in a ridiculous amount of products.

Chocolate products have a high percentage of caffeine.

Cocoa and tea are the second most consumed drinks among children that are also high in caffeine.

Overall, the overwhelming majority of children consume caffeine on a daily basis. So what makes coffee the main antagonist in children’s diet and why caffeine is so welcomed in the first place?

Caffeine is one of the biggest stimulants you can find in products. It can affect the central nervous system. Adults prefer coffee over other beverages in particular for that same effect.

Coffee helps adults stay alert and active. However, it affects kids slightly differently. Caffeine can increase anxiety in children and cause insomnia. Children on caffeine can’t feel fully tired.

Hence they can’t receive the needed rest. Besides just that, caffeine also has a psychological effect which is particularly dangerous for developing brains. It is a form of the drug. It can cause headaches, addiction and result in withdrawal. Overall, children of a young age can be particularly sensitive to caffeine.

Best time to start drinking coffee

Some people believe that the dangers of caffeine are drastically reduced when children are entering their teenage years. However, this is not exactly true. Teenagers are no less sensitive to coffee than young children. The nervous system of teenagers is already alert and prone to anxiety and stress due to major changes in the hormones.

The habit of consuming caffeine at that age can lead to serious consequences, from insomnia to anxiety. Unfortunately, most teenagers consume plenty of caffeine products on a daily basis. So many products beloved by teens like sodas, protein bars, and even yogurts can have hidden caffeine in them.

In fact, in many cases, teenagers are much more likely to develop an addiction to caffeine than children or even adults. However, teens mainly get their caffeine boost, not from coffee nuts, but from soda or energy drinks. This is a particularly dangerous situation to be in since such drinks are also full of sugar and other unhealthy elements.

Hence, if you notice that your teenage kid turns to sodas for energy, you can offer them an alternative. Exercise, for one, can be a great
energy booster with no harm for your kid’s health.

So, let’s return to the question of when our kids should start drinking coffee.

Our answer will be, they should start drinking coffee at the time when they will be able to check coffee makers reviews and pick the best brewer to their own liking. It seems like a reasonable marker of their maturity and age.

As you can see, coffee is just the tip of the iceberg here. Of course, children shouldn’t drink much coffee due to the reasons we have already enlisted here. However, most products these days are so full of caffeine that the chances they can cause your child’s addiction are very little.

We should strive to create a healthy diet for our children that will not affect their central nervous system that is so sensitive at their young age. So yes, even if you have the best Guatemala coffee beans at home, they are still not an appropriate treatment for a kid.